Instead of regular souvenirs or chocolates, my sister B’dee and cousin P’gya got this foodie a bag of Pasta from Europe. They brought me garganelli pasta, a rolled tube shaped pasta with resemblance to penne pasta. Garganelli pasta were naturally flavored with beet root, spinach, blueberry, tomato and turmeric by Italian pastamaker Pastificio Pipolo Costanzo. My cousin P’gya insisted that this pasta is meant for special occasions such as the valentine’s day dinner.

Garganelli Pasta

Indeed, what better way to celebrate the valentine’s day dinner than using this wonderful gift from my loved ones. The pasta dish of choice for me was creamy and velvety chicken alfredo. Chicken alfredo is too fattening for everyday but is an excellent rich once-in-a-while meal. I don’t like alfredo sauce from a jar in grocery or prefer sweating too much for it. So I decided to make a very simple and easy, yet gourmet chicken alfredo from these simple ingredients; 1 cup pasta, ½ lb chicken breast, plain cream cheese, white wine, black pepper, salt and butter.

Cook 1 cup pasta in at least 3 cups of drinking water seasoned with ½ teaspoon of salt. Adding fat (oil, butter) while cooking pasta does not stop it from sticking together. The key is to use enough water to prevent pasta from sticking together. The recommended ratio for pasta and water is at least 1:3. It is always better to boil more water than to get stuck with sticky undercooked pasta. If there is enough water, you also don’t need to stir pasta too much. Add pasta after salt water starts boiling. Cook for about 15 minutes or so until al dente. Cooking al dente means that pasta (rice or bean) is cooked throughout but still retains its firm texture, i.e., is not mushy due to overcooking. Do not rinse pasta after cooking. Good quality durum wheat (semolina) pasta should not release too much starch and whatever remaining starch there is will help stick sauce to the pasta.

As soon as butter melts, add chicken. Stir chicken every 30 s or so for 2 minutes or so until you get some browning on surface. You don’t need to cook chicken throughout because you will continue cooking it. Too much cooking will make chicken dry.

Half Cooked Chicken

Lower heat to medium. Add 4-5 tablespoons of cream cheese.

Cream Cheese and Chicken

Add ¼ cup white wine. Here I used cooking white wine.

Simmer for 5 minutes or so. Taste without burning your tongue. Add black pepper and salt if you desire.

Alfredo Sauce

I tasted the cooked flavored garganelli pasta by itself before mixing with the sauce. I could taste strong turmeric flavor and delicate spinach flavor in yellow (1) and green (5) pastas, respectively. I could not detect strong flavors in other pastas but could tell there was a subtle hint of hidden flavor. The image shows cooked pasta on top and raw pasta on bottom.

Cooked and Raw Garganelli Pasta

Add cooked pasta. Mix.

Simmering Chicken Alfredo

The chicken alfredo was creamy and rich and had a simple flavor with hint of wine and black pepper. You can substitute a tablespoon of cream cheese with other cheeses such as parmesan for flavor. Other things you can do for flavor is add caramelized shallots, add vegetables such as spinach.Instead of chicken (or along with it), you can also add mushrooms. There are lots of ways to flavor this dish, play with it and you may stumble into deliciousness. Eat!

Dgrub…love the different take on pasta. Most people would just go with fettucini but yours is definitely unique and creative. Where did you find pasta that fancy? Do you usually make it this way? By the way, thanks for stopping by my food blog. Keep posting great dishes because I’ll be sure to check back again.
~Chef Matt

This looks really good! I just got some organic pepper and Himalayan sea salt from Sustainable Sourcing https://secure.sustainablesourcing.com and I think I’ll try them both out in this recipe. Thanks for sharing!